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Topic: Land of the Dakota (Read 548 times)

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — It's advertised as a one-of-a-kind deal: Nearly 2,000 acres of prime real estate nestled in the Black Hills of South Dakota for sale to the highest bidder.

But the offer to sell the land near Mount Rushmore and historic Deadwood has distressed Native American tribes who consider it a sacred site. Although the land has been privately owned, members of the Great Sioux Nation — known as Lakota, Dakota and Nakota — have been allowed to gather there each year to perform ceremonial rituals they believe are necessary for harmony, health and well-being.

A lot of our people who practice our way of life go there to pray and there are a lot of us that go up there," said Rodney Bordeaux, president of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, which is leading the effort. "Basically, it's an opportunity for the tribes to become involved and save Pe' Sla from development, commercial development, up there and try to save it and keep it in its current state, so people can always go up there to pray."

The area is the only sacred site currently on private land outside Sioux control. The tribes believe the Sioux people were created from the Black Hills, and part of their spiritual tradition says Pe' Sla is where the Morning Star fell to earth, killing seven beings that killed seven women. The Morning Star placed the souls of the women into the night sky as "The Seven Sisters," also known as the Pleiades constellation.

The land — 1,942 acres of pristine prairie grass — is owned by Leonard and Margaret Reynolds, who would not comment on the sale. Chase Iron Eyes, a member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, said they should be commended for how well they have preserved the land and for giving the tribes access. Iron Eyes founded Last Real Indians, a website that promotes indigenous writers and is working with the tribes to spread the word about the sale via social media.

"There are a lot of our people that absolutely 100 percent do not agree with paying any money for land that we consider still ours, but the reality is we sometimes are forced to fight with the rules of the United States," Iron Eyes said.

The tribes have banded together to try to raise money to buy back as much of the land as they can. But with a week to go until the Aug. 25 auction, they have only about $110,000 committed for property they believe will sell for $6 million to $10 million.

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — It's advertised as a one-of-a-kind deal: Nearly 2,000 acres of prime real estate nestled in the Black Hills of South Dakota for sale to the highest bidder.

But the offer to sell the land near Mount Rushmore and historic Deadwood has distressed Native American tribes who consider it a sacred site. Although the land has been privately owned, members of the Great Sioux Nation — known as Lakota, Dakota and Nakota — have been allowed to gather there each year to perform ceremonial rituals they believe are necessary for harmony, health and well-being.

Yes, well the Sioux are all deluded - not only are the ceremonies pointless, if they really want to jump around shouting to sky-pixies, they can do it anywhere.

And WTF is a "sacred site"? Which witch-doctor decided that and did anyone test his sanity?

If this were the wood in which Joseph Smith was said to have received the golden tablets from Moroni, would there be any bother in bulldozing it? I can't see that there would be.

What makes Native Americans special that their superstitions and ignorance should stand in the way of commerce? Perhaps people think they are "cute" and so they get a pass?

(Edit to fix quotes)

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Nobody says “There are many things that we thought were natural processes, but now know that a god did them.”

I don't pretend to know as much about the Sioux as I do some of the other indigenous groups who populated the Americas for many thousands of years before the Europeans arrived and engaged in a campaign of genocide. A small percentage of human beings survived, and with them a tiny percentage of the original cultural practices.

So the land is sacred to them. I don't believe in sacred land. But dammit, their ancestors had a lot more than this little plot of land, and if this is the plot of land that the survivors want, then they should have access to that piece of land.

^^^I happen to concur with Graybeard about not caring whether or not the native Americans get to participate wholeheartedly in their goofy religious practices, but I do however, disagree with him in that it should simply "go to the highest bidder"...and for whatever purpose. If these landowners have preserved the land for so many years, while simultaneously allowing the natives to partake in their religious practices, then so be it (they don't fuck with us, why fuck with them?); but to just all of the sudden up and change and do a complete 180 and sell the property for what seems to be (or would be) the purpose of re-zoning it and making it in to some form of commercial retail space, in turn raping the Earth just one more time...well that my friend, that is just the physical epitome of stupid in my opinion.

I think it is natural for cultures to hold certain pieces of property as more special than others in relation to their national identity. In making civil policy, we should be mindful of the strength of such tendencies in our species, and their importance in society.

I feel about the Dakota land the same I felt about the ancient Buddahs the Taliban dynamited, or the native american burial mound bulldozed to make way for a wal-mart. They're just things, mundane and replaceable, but we are not wired to see things entirely in that way, and acts contrary to these impulses may be symptoms of an ailing society. I can't help but see them as icky somehow.

I’m fresh back from a visit to Disneyworld with my 5 ½ year old daughter. We did all the parks, and we had quite a few dinners in EPCOT.

My daughter LOVED the Spaceship Earth ride/exhibit that went through the history of humanity, from the development of language to facilitate hunting strategies, cave drawings to record important events, then onto the development of papyrus, the first written documents, the creation of mathematics, the alphabet, the printing press, on and on to computers and space travel, and then the opportunity for each rider to use a computerized program to create a portrait of a future with flying carpool systems and furniture consisting of recycled components and urban homes with interior gardens.

It was a spectacular journey through human history. But a selective journey. The Egyptians invented paper. The Greeks mathematics. The USA was credited for most of the later achievements.

It was a very Eurocentric journey.

As I said earlier, I don’t know very much about the Sioux. But I do know a lot about the Mayans. And as I sat next to my Mayan daughter, I felt a real pang of resentment that the spectacular accomplishments of her ancestors were not even noted. Yes, it appears that the Egyptians developed paper first. But the Mayans developed it independently, and used it regularly to document their extensive scientific observations before and during the centuries that Europe languished in the dark ages. And their mathematical system is, in so many ways, superior to the standard system that we use today. Calculations are just easier and more intuitive.

And yet the Mayans did not merit a mention in this exhibit. Nor, of course, did the Sioux. The winners write the history books.

I don’t know what the Sioux accomplished during the thousands of years they occupied the land that would become the Dakotas. I don’t know what they knew of mathematics or the stars or the properties of the native plants or the ways in which they used the resources available to them. I don’t know if they thrived or suffered during the ugliest centuries that my ancestors survived. But I do know that what little is left of their culture is a valuable part of human history that should not be erased.